The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Throw a pebble into the pool and see it dissolve into shimmering currents, carrying burdens of ashen leaves that autumn has swept beneath the silent tremors, teaming to cry their laments; Or hide behind a ripe tree and cast a glance, all … More Book Review: The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic (1989)
No, it hasn’t anything to do with courage. It’s more that I was so desperate and so frustrated. The only way I could trick myself into writing was by doing it like this. By setting myself the premise that I would write very quickly and not edit, that everything should be in it. Without that, … More Karl Ove Knausgaard – A Chequered Enigma
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Kurt Vonnegut. Four syllables, once pronounced, suspends in the air like a rock star swishing his name into the air for chanters to latch on and treble the echo. Slaughter-House Five, god knows how many syllables (depending on stress-points of your tongue), once sprinkled from … More Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
Stoner by John Williams My Rating: 5 of 5 stars As a child, I had a thing for inanimate things. A sling, a pond, a pebble, a mica chip; they would catch my attention and hold it hostage. I would play for hours together with these silent, placid beings, drawing great solace from their harmless, … More Book Review: Stoner by John Williams (1965)
Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars “War is the father of all and king of all. Some he shows as gods, others as men. Some he makes slaves and others, free.” But how does one differentiate between The Slave and The Free? Is that Man … More Book Review: Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee (1983)
Happy Birthday, Mr. Coetzee! It’s a day late but not more can pass without I sending you a birthday wish. I met your pen only last year; a delightful meeting by all means. I found your pen, by which I measure all the writers, with a visibly lackluster body but an impeccably sharp nib. That … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, J M COETZEE!
Happy Birthday, Sir Joyce! Its a bit of an injustice that you never lived long enough to see me, since if you had, you would have felt pleasantly proud and inflated in nurturing vanity at the sight of a fan so bewitched that she continued holding onto your works for almost an entire year, fearing … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES JOYCE!
Ulysses by James Joyce My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Some works are not written; they are lived. The authors write not with ink, but with breaths. Every breath that finds its way in, sucks in a piece of the world and releases it into the author’s being, letting it permeate, gauge, prod, absorb and … More Book Review: Ulysses by James Joyce (1920)
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